Throwing water on an out of control Bunsen burner flame. Yes or no?

[ruethewhirl]

Setting is a dental surgery. I'll provide more context shortly, but for now I just want to get some reactions to the question.

YABU = this is OK
YANBU = this isn't the right procedure

Depends what it's igniting or about to ignite. Turn the gas off and use a fire blanket if available.

Shouldn’t you just turn off the source of the gas? What kind of dental surgery uses a Bunsen burner?

Shut of the gas supply!

No, you cut off the gas supply.

Turning off the gas supply would be the right thing to do.

Curious about what you mean by "out of control" flame? Unless something else was ignited by it, I'm struggling to see how it could be out of control? (But I know nothing about science tbf)

This is something that comes up every time I visit a Victorian dental practice. I simply use the nearest dental floss to whip the flame out like a circus act.

On an out of control flammable gas fire use a Class C fire extinguisher (powder). And ideally turn off the gas supply, but only if it's safe to do so and you can reach it without endangering yourself.

Edited to say - NO to water.

I’m assuming that you witnessed someone do this, rather than you’re waiting to take a consensus from MN before acting! Did it work?

Not ideal but an understandable panicked reaction, especially if no fire safety training has been provided and/or no fire blanket within immediate reach. Most employees are advised NOT to tackle a fire but to raise the alarm and evacuate and shouldn’t use an extinguisher without adequate training.

If this was you @ruethewhirltry not to worry about being in trouble, you did what a lot of people would do, especially if you’d not had any fire safety training. Hopefully it will lead to a review of H&S and some training.

If it was someone who should have known better (e.g. practice manager/owner, the emergency services or a H&S rep) I’d sit back and wait for the shit to hit the fan!

I would have thought its pretty obvious not to throw water on a bunsen flame, though I could imagine someone panicking in the moment and not thinking (though I hope it's not someone who is supposed to know, ie who works there and had some health and safety training)

Shouldn't there be some sort of safety procedure, risk assessment for this happening ?

And if so you should refer to that re what action you should take rather than a poll on here by randoms who have no clue.

Fire triangle

In this case remove the fuel, rather than dampen down the flames as not only could it re-ignite, you don’t want to leave the gas in in a panic. Gas would be powder extinguisher, not water.

In year 10 I lit the rubber tube attached to one of the gas taps in science, it was great fun and worth the punishment!

Cut off the gas and try smoothering if anything else is on fire.

I'd worry water could be like a pan fire - or very least risk of steam and risk of tempertaure differences shattering any potential glassware involved.

Agree with turn off the gas if safe to do so, and use a fire blanket or appropriate fire extinguisher, if those items were available which I really hope they would be if this was an expected activity in a workplace.

Gosh, I'm relieved to see the general tone of responses so far as I feel like I've just been treated as strange to react like I did.

This happened at my mum's dental appointment this afternoon and I gather the burner was being used in some element of creating my mum's dentures. Events are somewhat blurry given it's not every day you see this sort of thing, but it was basically a 'whoa!' from the dentist that confirmed I was seeing something that shouldn't be happening, it's hard to articulate but there was just ... way too much flame, if that makes sense. And I don't know if there were two burners on the go or what, but at one point there were definitely two such flames on the counter of the surgery.

Myself and my mum were well out of the way of the flames, but the handfuls of water were making very little difference. He called his colleagues in to 'observe' and at one point asked for a photo to be taken?! All the while, tbf, apologising to me and my mum, but... it was unnerving that he seemed to be out of his depth with this. Eventually(!) someone suggested bringing the fire blanket and this duly took place but the dentist kept lifting it to see if the flames were out.

I asked for us to be moved to another surgery when I started to smell gas. This request was treated with a degree of surprise.

Did you get the job ?

Hopefully my reply provides sufficient further context.

no turn the gas off and then smother

Shut off the gas???

Dunno but think I’d have started filming for a TikTok 🤣

And apologies if I alarmed anyone who might have thought this was an ongoing scenario. I guess I should have clarified that I am a sane individual and not one of the loons who surf on to Mumsnet at regular intervals. 😄

Absolutely No, with a bunsen (I work in science at a high school). You either turn of at the tap if possible or hit the emergency gass stop at the from of the room.

The problem with water is it could extinguish the flame leaving you will unignited gass coming out of the tap. This could then reignite into a explosive accident.

Ah, likely using a metal which has then dripped onto the bunsen and ignited, fairly common but would cause a larger flame.

Rather apt username

I assume something unexpected caught fire in the flame - and it was a never seen that before reaction - and weren't thinking health and safety training - which suggests it needs updating/re-doing. Though turning of teh gas should have been thought of.

One of my secondary science teacher broke a conatiner of strong acid while doing something in fornt of the entire class stood still and then ran off screaming to tech support ignoring nearer sinks - had to come back in and say don't do what I just did - this is how to deal with that situation.